This invention relates to electrical devices, and in particular to plasma-addressed electro-optic display panels commonly referred to as "PALC" display devices.
PALC-type display devices comprise, typically, a sandwich of: a first substrate having deposited on it parallel transparent column electrodes, commonly referred to as "ITO" columns or electrodes since indium-tin oxides are typically used, on which is deposited a color filter layer; a second substrate comprising parallel sealed plasma channels corresponding to rows of the display crossing all of the ITO columns and each of which is filled with a low pressure ionizable gas, such as helium, neon and/or argon, and containing spaced cathode and anode electrodes along the channel for ionizing the gas to create a plasma, which channels are closed off by a thin transparent dielectric sheet; and a liquid crystal (LC) material located between the substrates. The structure behaves like an active matrix liquid crystal display in which the thin film transistor switches at each pixel are replaced by a plasma channel acting as a row switch and capable of selectively addressing a row of LC pixel elements. In operation, successive lines of data signals representing an image to be displayed are sampled at column positions and the sampled data voltages are respectively applied to the ITO columns. All but one of the row plasma channels are in the de-ionized or non-conducting state. The plasma of the one ionized selected channel is conducting and, in effect, establishes a reference potential on the adjacent side of a row of pixels of the LC layer, causing each LC pixel to charge up to the applied column potential of the data signal. The ionized channel is turned off, isolating the LC pixel charge and storing the data voltage for a frame period. When the next row of data appears on the ITO columns, only the succeeding plasma channel row is ionized to store the data voltages in the succeeding row of LC pixels, and so on. As is well known, the attenuation of each LC pixel to backlight or incident light is a function of the stored voltage across the pixel. A more detailed description is unnecessary because the construction, fabrication, and operation of such PALC devices have been described in detail in the following U.S. patents and publication, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference: U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,896,149; 5,077,553; 5,272,472; 5,276,384; and Buzak et al., "A 16-Inch Full Color Plasma Addressed Liquid Crystal Display", Digest of Tech. Papers, 1993 SID Int. Symp., Soc. for Info. Displ. pp. 883-886.
A cross-section of the PALC display described in the 1993 SID Digest is shown in FIG. 2. The thin dielectric sheet, called from time-to-time herein the "micro-sheet", can be given a thickness in the range of 30-50 .mu.m. It can be provided over an etched glass substrate as shown and the electrodes provided along the curved bottom surface. Alternatively, as proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,214,521, the electrodes can be deposited on a flat bottom plate while the top plate is etched back to form channels shaped as hemi-cylinders--the inverse of that shown in FIG. 2--in such a way that the remaining glass at the top of the channels is thin enough to allow addressing of the adjacent LC material. Other constructions have been proposed using vertical side walls with the electrodes deposited on the side walls facing one another, which may allow lowering of the channel height. See, for example, EP 0 567 021 A1 and the first referenced related application (Ser. No. 08/361,078 5604-0375), whose contents are herein incorporated by reference.
In all the known constructions, to the best of our knowledge, the electrodes were formed by well known photolithographic processes in which the whole surface was first covered with the electrode material, an etchant mask provided and patterned to expose all of the deposited electrode material except for the desired locations of the electrodes, and an etching step carried out with an etchant that selectively attacks the electrode material until all of the exposed latter is removed. This is an expensive and time-consuming process.
Similarly, it was known to provide on opposite sides of the panel a so-called fanout region to simplify the process of contacting individually the cathode and anode electrodes. All of the cathode electrode contact regions fanned out and widened at one side of the panel, and all of the anode electrode contact regions fanned out and widened at the opposite side of the panel. Again, the standard photolithographic process was used to make the contact regions for the cathode and anode electrodes, which added to the expense of the assembly.